The Animals and Birds

الجَزِيلاَتِ وَأَثْمَارِهَا المُنْتَظَمَةِ البَلِيغَاتِ بِشَهَادَةِ عَظَمَةِ إِحَاطَةِ حَقِيقَةِ الإِنْعَامِ وَالإكْرَامِ وَالإِحْسَانِ بِقَصْدِ

وَرَحْمَةِ حَقِيقَةِ التَّمْيِيزِ وَالتَّزْيِينِ وَالتَّصْوِيرِ بِإِرَادَةٍ وَحِكْمَةٍ مَعَ قَطْعِيَّةِ

دَلاَلَةِ حَقِيقَةِ فَتْحِ جَمِيعِ صُوَرِهَا المَوْزُونَاتِ المُزَيَّنَاتِ المُتَبَايِنَةِ المُتَنَوِّعَةِ

غَيْرِ المَحْدُودَةِ مِنْ نَوَاتَاتٍ وَحَبَّاتٍ مُتَمَاثِلَةٍ مُتَشَابِهَةٍ مَحْصُورَةٍ مَعْدُودَةٍ

There is no god but Allāh, the Necessary Being. The consensus of

every species of glorifying tree and plant, speaking with the words

of their well-proportioned, articulate leaves, of their ornamented,

lucid flowers, and their consistent, eloquent fruits, demonstrate the

necessity of His unitive existence by the testimony of the sublimity of

the all-encompassing realities of the bestowal of blessings, generosity,

conscious beneficence, the mercy of the reality of distinction,

ornamentation and representation, by volition and wisdom, along with

the conclusive evidence given by the reality of opening and disclosure

of all of their limitless, well-proportioned, ornamented, divergent,

varied forms, from almost identical, limited kernels.

As this curious world traveller on the contemplative journey, whose pleasure and enthusiasm increased through ascending, set forth from the garden of spring. After having taken a bouquet of roses of spiritual knowledge and faith of the same proportions as spring itself, he found himself at the door of the world of animals and birds.

It opened in front of his reality-descrying intellect and his knowledge-harmonising thought, and they called him in welcomingly in thousands of different voices and languages and said: “Please do come in!”

He entered then, and saw that every species, every community and every nation of all animals and birds had turned the face of the earth into an arena of Divine remembrance (dhikr) and an immense gathering of taḥlīl, saying, in perfect agreement and in the language of speech and of state, Lā ilāha illallāh, ‘there is no god but Allāh.

He saw that each one of these creatures was in itself a poem of the Divine, a word of the Glorified One, and a meaningful letter of the Merciful One (Ar-Raḥmān), describing its Artful Creator (Aṣ-Ṣāni‘), as well as thanking and praising him. It is quite as if the senses, capacities, limbs, tools, and physical systems were rhythmically balanced, metrical words, well-ordered, unique utterances.

He then saw three sublime and all-encompassing realities, that gave conclusive proof that through these words, these creatures are thanking their Creator, Who consistently and perfectly creates (Al-Khallāq), and their Provider (Ar-Razzāq), and testifying to His unity (waḥdāniyyah).

The first sublime, all-encompassing reality: This is a reality that cannot, from any perspective, be ascribed to idle chance and blind forces, and unconscious nature, rather it is wise origination from nothingness (ex nihilo), and masterful creation, deliberate, [orderly] and knowing formation and production.

It is the reality of the bestowal of the spirit and the giving of life that both signify, in twenty different ways, the manifestation of knowledge, wisdom, and volition.

This reality testifies, as a dazzling conclusive proof that has as many witnesses as there are human spirits, to the necessity of the existence 

of the Ever-Living, the Self-Existing, along with His seven Attributes (ṣifāt), and His unity.

The second sublime, all-encompassing reality: Those limitless artful creations being distinct from one another, beautified and designed differently in visage, ornamented in shape, balanced in quantity and harmoniously ordered in forms reveal such a sublime and powerful reality that nothing but the Omnipotent (Qādiru kulli shay') and the Omniscient One (‘Ālimu kulli shay') could be the owner of this all-encompassing action that manifests thousands of miracles and wisdoms from every perspective. And there is no other conceivability and possibility.

The third sublime, all-encompassing reality: The opening and disclosure of hundreds of thousands of forms - which is a miracle of wisdom for limitless animals - from mere eggs and ova, and from droplets of water called sperm, limited and restricted, identical or differing only very slightly - we say - the opening and disclosure of these forms in perfect order and balance, without a single mistake is a bright reality, as this reality is illuminated as many evidences and proofs as there are animals.

The traveller saw that every species of animals says لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُو ‘There is no god but Him’ all together, by the agreement of all three of these realities, and they testify to that. It is as if the earth, like a great man says, لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُو ‘There is no god but Him’ by the relation of its size, and the inhabitants of the heavens hear him. He saw this, and received a complete lesson.

In order to express this meaning, the following was mentioned, in ‘The Seventh Level’ of ‘The First Station’: